Sweet Dreams
by the.woods
Summary: Sometimes, he forgets who is hunting whom.


**Author:** **the_woods_**  
**Title:** Sweet Dreams  
**Pairing:** Scabior/Hermione (or rather, Penelope Clearwater)  
**Prompt:** "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)"...specifically, the cover by Emily Browning  
**Rating:** R for sexual assault  
**Word Count:** 1530  
**Summary:** Sometimes, he forgets who is hunting whom.  
**Warnings:** Sexual assault, cross-gen  
**A/N:** The cover by Emily Browning inspired me to take Annie Lennox's words to a truly haunted and maddening level, hehe. Hope you enjoy ! I love Hermione/Scabior :D

x.x.x

Scabior lay in his makeshift bed and stared up at the canvas ceiling of his enhanced tent. He was too tired to move, much less fall asleep. His body ached from the day spent tracking through the forest. He breathed the deep night air in and closed his eyes, trying to focus on something other than the dull pain permeating his limbs.

Traveling for months with a werewolf made Scabior reconsider a lot of his realities about trailing, survival, and the human body. He had watched Greyback in full hunting mode, focused on tracking rogue wizards and witches, guilty Mudbloods and Muggles. Greyback had a voracity that couldn't be matched. Scabior often looked on in quietly hidden awe as Greyback prowled, motivated by some unfettered sixth sense. Even the mornings after his transformation, Greyback was energetic, bursting with movement and life. It was an inherent contradiction, considering the amount of physical and mental drain that came with transforming back into the human state.

At first, he was not sure if he was up to the challenge, no matter how much gold was at stake. Scabior found that as he slipped out of his old city life, his habbits began to change. As a finely-tuned predator, Greyback instructed the Snatchers to keep the moon as their master while they slaved under the sun.

But then he happened upon her scent, and everything changed.

On one trek, he happened to walk past an air that felt out of place. As Greyback and the rest of the Snatchers marched on, Scabior calmly backtracked until he found it again. He sniffed. _She_, his instinct told him. Her scent made him stop. Consider. Relax his body and still himself in the moment. Scabior closed his eyes, inhaled again, and her fragrance climbed over him, on top of his body, enticing his nerves.

He felt himself stir in the empty clearing. Briefly, he tried to remember the last time he lay with a woman. Thanks to the first Muggle he caught, the gold he received earned him a decent meal and woman at one of the hidden brothels in Knockturn Alley.

He opened his eyes slowly and scanned the void woods. _Jasmine_, he told himself, but there was no jasmine in sight.

Weeks after that, he came across her scarf. It was a deep pink, dirtied by the forest. She must have tied it there more than several days ago. He fingered the fabric as Greyback looked on. Glancing down at the scarf, he immediately felt silly. Scabior knew what Greyback would ask of him. To truly hunt, he learned you had to use more than just your eyes and ears and touch. You had to taste. To smell.

He felt like a squib testing for magic: hopelessly hopeful. Scabior gathered the cloth in his fists and brought it to his nose. This was the second time he came across her scent. It was like falling into an old dream, or bringing forth a faded memory. This time, the jasmine was subdued by the spices of the earth, of dirt and bark and decaying leaves. Almost violently, he tugged the scarf off the tree, draping it around his neck. Greyback gave him a feral grin.

As he lay awake and restless in his bed, Scabior wondered-and not for the first time-if she was doing it on purpose. Her scent inflamed him during his waking hours, then enticed him at night. His dreams were rich and teeming with a desire on the brink of eruption.

That familiar odor was there in the back of his mind, right before he fell into the comforts of sleep. Often, he dreamed in fragrance instead of color. It was always strong, so much so he could taste it, gasping as he slept.

Scabior could even paint her based on the mingled memories of her scent. Red cheeks upon a lightly tanned face for the day that smelled of lingering snow and chilled sweat. Frizzled hair streaked with highlights from the sun, thanks to the afternoon where he found her soap by the river. He traced her slender neck by sniffing her scarf: its lingering scent whispered a dozen sweet secrets about her body, something he could only imagine while he slept.

When he woke, he tried to cling to hazed memories of last night. They brushed away easily, like fragile cobwebs woven around him, destined to dissolve into nothingness.

x.x.x

It was under a thin crescent moon and an impressive array of frenzied stars that the Snatchers found the rogues. When they surprised their camp, the trio split in three different directions. It didn't take long for Scabior to find her. She fired a curse in his direction, but months of trekking through the woods had honed his body, prepped his mind for the attack. He temporarily stunned her and she fell, her wand slipping out of her grip.

She was afraid—he could tell by the look in her eyes and the hitch in her breathing. Scabior watched her chest heave and touched his lips softly. As he approached, she staggered back into a tree, struggling to stand. He cornered her there. Her voice caught in her throat as he reached out for a lock of her hair.

"What's your name?" he murmured, twirling the brunette strands in his fingers. Something in his voice must have calmed her. She remained stiff, but stopped struggling significantly.

"Penelope," she answered. "Penelope Clearwater."

_Penelope_. He tested her name on his tongue. "Penelope Clearwater."

She refused to look at him. He didn't mind. Her voice took him back to those late nights in his bed, his hands wrapped around her scarf as he stroked himself, mouth slightly parted and eyes half-closed. While he slept, the fabric often brushed against his face. He swore he could hear it whispering to him in his dreams.

Scabior leaned in and grabbed the back of her head almost tenderly. She tightened her eyes as he sniffed at her hair, that familiar dirtied jasmine. His exhale was ragged. His body shuddered. He pushed his forehead against hers to keep balance.

"You wanted this."

She opened her eyes and watched him warily. Scabior let his fingers run across her naked neck. She shivered as he traced her collarbone, dragging down past her shirt. Penelope shrieked and scrambled to get away from him.

"You caught me," he said, his voice hard. "Lured me in."

"No," she replied vehemently, shaking her head."No, I—"

"Then why did you leave me this?" Scabior brought his hands to her scarf. She watched as he placed the fringe against his mouth.

Her eyes went wide when he inhaled. He smirked, licked his lips. His gaze darkened. Something deep inside grabbed him quite suddenly, and for a moment he believed that she was the predator, and he the prey. Scabior glanced around the clearing for the other Snatchers. There was no breeze in these woods, only the unmoving earth. He heard yelling and rustling, but it was so far off into the distance, he couldn't be sure it was real.

He dropped his hold on Penelope's scarf and turned back to her. Carefully, he knelt. She held her breath and watched him, unsure. When he gripped her thighs, she didn't fight him, and he found himself at eye-level with her groin.

The slightest whiff caught his attention. It was a tangy, unfiltered aroma, deeper than Penelope's scarf, more ravage than the scent of her hair. Scabior let it enter him as it called out for release. Suddenly, Scabior tightened his grip and as he brought Penelope down, all his dreams came back in a rush of desire and sensation and smell and taste.

She screamed when she fell. He found that he liked it. He pulled at her tight Muggle trousers, desperate for skin, and as she fought and yelled he became completely certain of who was hunting who. When she couldn't get out of his grasp, she clawed at his face, his back, his matted hair. He growled in what was either pain or pleasure. Her trousers came down and revealed her childish pink knickers, lightly covered in white lace along the seams. Penelope bucked her hips, trying to escape, but he caught her mid-thrust and held her there. With a savagery that bordered on Greyback's level, he forcibly parted her legs, rushing to lick and kiss the inside of her thighs. His nose brushed against her knickers. That primal scent captured him again-stronger this time, beckoning him to bask in its warmth. He bit down on the fabric, ripping it, then tugged and mauled them off her with his fingers. A mad fervor he had never known overcame him. He groaned at the strong musk of her arousal. His hands frantically roamed along the sides of her body. In a sweet and tortured desperation, Scabior tried to drink all of Penelope Clearwater in. Groping, scratching, he needed to get closer. He felt himself tighten as he neared her center, almost tasting it.

A moment later, the prey found himself back in his bed, staring up at a white canvas ceiling. The early sunlight trickled in as he lay tangled in his sheets with her scarf.


End file.
